ABSTRACT

Pacific Oceania has offered numerous examples of how people have expanded their settlement and land-use patterns and then engaged in variable ways of intensifying their use of the inherently constrained island ecosystems. These examples post-dated A.D. 1000, necessarily occurring only after populations had expanded to inhabit the limits of the island world. Some cases were characterized by competition and conflict for controlling land and resources, while other cases emphasized cooperative solutions. A chronological perspective can clarify the timing, context, and process of expansion and intensification in diverse island settings.